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New Aston Martin Vanquish to make official debut in Los Angeles: Autoweek TV

November 20, 2012

Also in this episode: Audi makes our day by announcing an expanded lineup of diesels bound for the U.S., then squanders that goodwill by announcing the production of yet another large, low-utility SUV.

TRANSCRIPT

-- Aston Martin will show their Vanquish in L.A.

-- Audi kicks off the holidays early with the gift of diesel.

-- And they immediately renew our cynicism by approving a Q8 for production.

I'm Rory, it's Wednesday and everyone knows Custer died at little Big Horn. What this edition of the news presupposes, is maybe he didn't?

We've driven it, and you've no doubt seen some lovely pictures, and now at the end of the month, you'll be able to ogle it in person. Of course we're talking about Aston Martin's new Vanquish.

It's got a 565-hp V12 that also churns out 457 ft-lb of torque, it's got carbon-fiber body work and a lovely interior. Wes Raynal says it's awesome to drive, but he was able to forgive Aston for failing to make a manual transmission available.

If you see one on the stand in LA and decide you must have it, you'll just need a check for around $285,000.

Audi will increase the number of diesels it sells in the US, adding diesel variants of the A7, Q7, A6, and Q5 will join the Q7 TDI on these shores late next year.

Notably absent from the announcement was a TDI-powered version of the R8. Still no diesel R8. Once again, Audi is not building a diesel R8.

All the good karma that Audi generated with their oil-burner announcement was immediately balanced out by reports from CAR magazine that the Volkswagen subsidiary has approved for a production a monster SUV with extremely limited utility, sort of like the BMW X6. It will be built on VW's new MLB platform which is set to underpin the next Volkswagen Toureg and Porsche Cayenne.

You know, who can really blame them? If we keep encouraging the Germans, they'll continue to behave like this.

And that's the pre-Thanksgiving news. We'll be taking some time off this week for the holiday, but we'll be back on Monday, noticeably fatter.

Feel free to peruse our other videos at autoweek.com and on YouTube until we get back.